An Illinois Town Bans Kids From Only Sledding Hill

What happened to the America that once was? What happened to the America where kids could spend their snow-days at the local sledding hill, without cell phones in their snow-pants, laughing at their friends' face-plants, throwing snowballs, and making the same yellow-snow jokes that their grandfathers made when they too were a bunch of rapscallions running through the slush? What happened to the America where kids could come home from that hill with a bloody nose or an injured something-or-other, and, sure, there'd be crying and a scramble, but afterward, everything was fine if not actually better, and the town itself wasn't nervous about a lawsuit? What happened to the America where a snowy sledding hill wasn't a municipal insurance problem?

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Because that America exists no more in Paxton, Illinois. Because the Paxton Park District's insurance provider ruled that its sledding hill is too risky. "The insurance would have skyrocketed if someone was hurt," a parks board member told The Champaign News-Gazette. "I can imagine that the first couple of times it snows, they'll think about the hill and come out and see it's not there and be disappointed," the recreation director said, "but I'm hoping within a couple of years it will be forgotten."

No.

And what's more, the hill is one of the few prized hills that exist in the area. Read these sentences:

Paxton is about 30 miles north of Champaign and sits in one of the flattest areas in Illinois. Places to ride a sled downhill in that part of the state are almost all handmade.

According to the News-Gazette, a Paxton construction crew had already begun to clear the local hill.

We understood when ski resorts threw small disclaimers around for their tubing terrains. And when a sled dog race was canceled because the trails would be too icy. But closing a local sledding hill? Hoping it'll be forgotten?

And so, once again: What happened to the America that once was? The America where both the snow and the children fell, and we were all happy for it.